What it's really like to live in Perth's CBD: the view from the inside

I was supposed to be writing another story about Perth and suddenly I felt bone-tired and depressed. Maybe because of what I was reading: another report about how we could have a thriving, liveable city.

The landmark Creating Great Australian Cities study commissioned by the Property Council of Australia said we did well out of the latest resources boom, but predictably, we needed to halt sprawl, diversify the economy and make a vibrant city with more “urban amenities” for a better “urban lifestyle”.

Beautiful from a distance - but what about close up? Take our five-minute survey (link at bottom). Credit:Fairfax Media.

As a journalist specialising in planning and environment I have written heaps on Perth suburbs with liveability issues: high-density birthing pangs, tree canopy problems, long commutes, poor walkability, lack of cycling paths.

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But it's been academic as I've lived mostly in Como, where it's spacious, leafy, well connected to everywhere via road, rail and bus; close to the river, full of parks and places to shop and eat and do all those little low-key things that make your area feel like home.

After a six-month stay in the USA my husband and I moved to East Perth to be close to work. We didn't get a car, deciding to fully embrace modern city life. I fully expected it to be awesome.

I’ve given it a solid crack and told everyone it's all gravy. I actually believed myself. But reading this (and every other) report about Perth's need for vibrancy, I suddenly realised why they were making me feel so bone-tired. I don't think I'd yet admitted to myself that this lifestyle isn’t what I expected.

In Como, I had a stunning farmer’s market near my house and several top-quality places to grocery shop within walking and biking distance. I occasionally bulk-bought household supplies and weekly I bought mainly fresh produce, only rarely darkening the door of a supermarket.

In Perth there is a tiny, top-dollar organic market near me, totally impractical for a weekly shop. There’s a farmer’s market on Sunday arvos in Murray Street Mall, but who shops on a Sunday afternoon?

I thought I'd try supporting smaller business closer to home and attempted the whole shop at the three food-marts opposite my apartment block. All have almost unlimited processed delights and Ben & Jerry’s, but the fruit and veg is obviously an afterthought and often half-rotted. This, plus being charged $8 for a small package of brown rice, is already testing my resolve to shop local. You've got to visit all three in a row to get three-quarters of even a basic shopping list.

Having three near-identical food-marts in one 50m stretch is the result of what passes in Perth as “mixed-use development”; in practice, apartment towers with one token commercial tenancy on the ground floor, almost always a convenience store or coffee shop. It amazes me these are still in business: they always seem deserted (though the Ben & Jerry’s turnover seems high).

Elizabeth Quay is beautiful, but there is a long way to go until it's a rich destination. Credit:Emma Young

If I need to run an errand I can catch a free bus or walk to the shopping district inside 20 minutes. But whether I pick Hay or the Terrace the walk is cold, gray and empty, done for exercise rather than pleasure. The odd tall, lonely eucalypts I pass have a desperate look, like they know they won't survive the next development application. The fabulous new Westin Hotel seems amusingly out of place.

Sometimes I've got no errands and just want to go somewhere nice. So I’ll walk 25 minutes along the beautiful Swan through the rehabilitated natural foreshores of Fraser Point past Ku De Ta, east to Claisebrook Cove, or west to Elizabeth Quay. But all these destinations offer is more places to eat and drink. Unless a decent exhibition is on at the Convention Centre, the Quay remains a tourist centre without a heart.

If I take a visitor to the Quay I don’t know what I’ll do with them there after the first admiring lap, unless they're burning for a camel ride. I suppose I'll just hope they don’t mind paying $4.90 for a coffee, $18 for a cocktail or $36 for a steak with no sides.

No offence to the camels! Credit:Emma Young

I like low-fear cycling, but there’s no cycle path through the city bar along the river, so you have to use footpaths. These are three-quarters empty, but you have to stop at all the bottlenecks that are our pedestrian crossings and endure looks of mingled bewilderment and irritation from walkers, who don’t want you on their footpath any more than the motorists want you on their road.

Nevertheless, one must make an effort to leave one's poorly designed concrete box, so one Sunday arvo I rode my bike to Yagan Square. I liked how, as promised, it linked the city and Northbridge. I admired its artful terraces and dignified statue. But it was so empty. As a friend said, you could fire a shotgun and hit only pigeons. This friend had lamented the choice of gum trees for this space and for Elizabeth Quay. As waterwise and culturally safe as they are, as much as they drop no messy leaves for council workers to clean up, they won’t make our key offerings the shady refuges they need to be in summer.

Another quiet Sunday I rode to the art gallery to see the visiting Corsini exhibition. When I was done, I realised the permanent collection was pretty much all that was left and was the same as my last visit in summer. No disrespect to the gallery, it was just to soon too do it again despite having time to spare. The museum won’t re-open until 2020.

I remembered New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney, the Guggenheim, the American Museum of Natural History, the Museum of Modern Art. There I was only limited by time, never by options. Here it’s the other way around. I sat in the Urban Orchard for a bit, then went home.

A couple of times we've thought about nipping to the movies, but there’s no CBD cinema. The closest is Northbridge’s Paradiso, and you have to be in the mood for arthouse. To just turn your brain off and see Incredibles 2 I have to get a half-hour bus to Garden City or Carousel. Mad, eh?

The Quay, the newish city library, Yagan Square and the stadium are all beautiful. There are lots of lovely buildings in Perth, but somehow the whole still evades beauty and grandeur. Bless us, even our CBD sprawls, and between each jewel are far too many dead zones.

And of course there is lots to do really. We have great festivals and arts. But residents need more than an events calendar. It should be nice to live here day in, day out. Perth's CBD should have more to offer than its suburbs, not less. I love Perth and it hurts me to say this, but we just need more.